Tech CVs lie!!!
Imran wrote that people often cheat in their CVs by enumerating things that they don’t really know about. He also suggests basic sets of knowledge, each for a specific skill/tech (e.g. Java, design patterns etc.), that a person needs to possess before claiming the skill/tech in the CV. I generally agree with his observation about the fact that many developers exagerate about their competences in their CVs.
I used to interview a programmer who wrote in his CV that he had been working on a “web-farm project”. When I asked what exactly he meant by “web-farm project”, it turned out that he just programmed with the open-source DotNetNuke portal with the addition of some trivial modules, and he though that “web-farm” meant a big website with a lot of users accessing to it (!!!). I’ve also read CVs of several programmers who list XP, Scrum in their CVs just because they had read a few articles or book chapters about those processes. But, I would refer many of such cases to the problem of being ignorant rather than lies. Why? Because there is usually no standard to determine as to whether a person can list a certain technology or language in his or her CV. As a result, assessing the honesty of a person via his CV is a very subjective and erroneous process. For example, if a person can code C# without knowing a thing about the CLR, can he list .NET as his skill? Some interviewers may think that the knowledge about C# alone is not enough to make such claim, but to the guy himself, he is honest: he thinks he knows C# and .NET (at least, he uses the class libraries).
Having said that, I have some rules of thumb to cope with this:
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Focus only on the knowledge required to get the job effectively done. For example, if I interview a developer for a Java desktop application position, I will not care to verify how much he knows (or lies) about HTML/DHTML, or JavaScript, or PHP, or Ajax, as long as he can demonstrate a solid understanding about AWT/Swing/SWT, Java language, design patterns, the JVM, usability
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Be objective. Do not think people lie just because they list out something you think they do not know enough about. Assume they are honest, and verify whether their knowledge is satisfactory for the job. For example, if a person writes in his CV that he is an expert in Java and is applying for a Java developer position at your organization, it may not be necessary to ask him/her to write a quick sort in bytecode to demonstrate whether s/he is really an expert (in your view about what that word really means)
It partially filled up vacancies that Imran has subjectively left. Buu discovered out ‘I would refer most of such cases to the problem of being ignorant rather than lies’. Good point!! However, I don’t totally agree with the sentence ‘As a result, assessing the honesty of a person via his CV is a very subjective and erroneous process.’ From my point of view, we can somehow do it. During interview (Unfortunately, we can hardly to check all items in an interview session) we can able to appraise which overstated competence is ignorance which one is lie. Figuring out that is quite important in an interview since it helps the assessment (including the honestly of the candidate) is more accurate.
First, thanks for your comments, Phong. You raised a disagreement with one of my point and said
While I can see where you come from when saying that, it is almost always the case that when a candidate adds a buzz word into his CV (i.e. Ajax), he must have possessed a certain piece of knowledge about it. That guy may happen to never ever written any Ajax application, and only have read about it in one or two articles. He may feel insecured about his knowledge about Ajax and he may be aware that he does not know enough about the thing to be productive with it. But damn it, he thinks he knows it and he should be able to include it in his CV. So, with this candidate, can you say he is a liar, an ignorant person (or an ignorant liar)?
On the other hand, it’s true that there is a number of candidates who may intentionally cheat by listing Ruby in their CV just because they know it is a programming language (without even know about any syntax). But I would suppose this number is really small (otherwise, that guy must be really really “courageous” and, in addition, it is very unfortunate for the software industry).
And yes, as you said, we can hardly assess all the things the guy says (or lies) in his CVs, the focus should be on the assessment of things necessary for the him to get the job done in his applied position. If he applied for a Java developer position, assess whatever necessary knowledge for that position, otherwise, you would spend all of your productive interviewing time to detect lies, which does not worth the effort for the reasons I mention above.
Buu, I definitely agree with you on the points you’ve mentioned. From your point of view, they’re the neccessary skills and what the applicants possess to do the job good (i.e. whether attributes of the candidates are suitable for the tasks needed). Phong is also right to say about “overstated competence” since he may view it from the management (I don’t know whether he does, just guess!) point of view. A good candidate does not only have the skills needed for the job, but also the characteristics (or non-technical) that he has, and these make up his form or how he will be in the long term (he knows he’ll have to make up for the things in his CVs if they ain’t real, otherwise there is no good progress!).
Have a good day, Buu! Wish you all the best!
Thanks for stopping by, Thinh. You’re right that a good candidate needs not only the technical capability but also a personal characteristics which need to fit with the team (ideally, fit with any team). After all, you do not want to hire superstar coder who can just not work well with anybody else. In Peopleware, Tom DeMarco even argued that during an interview session, it’s best to have the many team members, instead of just the hiring manager, assess the candidate. I think I would try this strategy some time
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